Remembering Desmond Tutu, 1931-2021

As a high school principal, I often sought out smaller alternative gatherings and workshops that dealt with building meaningful communities, whether in neighborhoods, schools or corporations, rather than attending the larger conferences and conventions for educators and school leaders. At one such event offered by the Bali Institute for Global Renewal in 2006, one hundred attendees gathered outside an old temple compound now serving as an art museum. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was among us and gave what he said was his one and only sermon, one based on the tenets of human rights. He said he’d given it hundreds of times before. He did add, however, that he felt that more needed to be done for the civil rights of LGBTQ people throughout the world. I was impressed that he made that statement and that I was there to hear it, especially since we were in Indonesia, a nation known for its intolerance toward gay people. He ended his remarks by saying that with so many pretty people here, we should all go dancing and with that said, the afternoon’s activities came to an end and we all went dancing. 

Later that day I was asked to escort an older woman to a small gathering of the institute’s founders for cocktails and dinner at a lush tropical hotel hanging off a cliff which looked out over tiered rice paddies and waterfalls. The woman had slipped and fallen earlier in the day on the polished floor of the old temple turned museum. She asked if I would help her in and out of the hired van or when moving between rooms at the event as a precaution. As the evening progressed, and sometime after cocktails and before dinner, I found myself sitting alone on a tapestried couch surrounded by Balinese art and sculpture. It was nice to have this quiet time away from the reception’s chatter. And then, Desmond Tutu came into the room and asked if I minded if he sat down beside me. He, too, was looking for a quiet place to rest before the meal. He had changed out of his gray t-shirt which he’d worn most of the day into a button-up splashed with swirls of wild colors. He still wore his trademark cap: charcoal gray wool with woven braid fastened across the band above the short brim. It resembled a modified cadet cap, squat and with a flattened crown and reminded me of the one once worn by Chairman Mao.

I told him how much I appreciated his remarks that afternoon. I told him I was a high school principal who was gay and out to his students, faculty, school board and community. We talked awhile longer and were interrupted by distant chimes signaling that it was time to make our way to dinner. Desmond leaned over and took my hand in his and said, “You are carrying God within you and I am carrying God within me, and because we all carry God within us we are special people, and it’s important that we act that way. Please continue to do the work that you do, we need it now in the world more than ever.”